Preparations for Christmas Mass were still under way... ...there was...a correspondent for..."L'Unita'...a couple of visitors from East Germany, two Russian correspondents...a very blonde and buxom young woman...to represent Radio Moscow... ...Monsignor George Hussler...arrived in Hanoi...to demonstrate...that the Vatican was sincere in its declarations for peace in Vietnam. ...to show...that...the Catholic Church was no longer playing sides. ...senior bishop of North Vietnam...Trinh Nhu Khee...said that...it was the hope of the Americans to eliminate the Catholic Church in the North... ...Rev. Ho Thanh Bien...had just been reading...or Cardinal Spellman's Christmas prayers in Saigon - prayers for victory of the American Army. Many Catholic churches, he said, had been bombed in the course of the United States air offensive in the North. He did not believe that God supported the American cause. The price was the same for both Hanoi-built and Chinese bicycles. The Hanoi factory had been scheduled to reach a production of 100,000 bikes in 1965, but the war had prevented it... To buy one required a special permit, issued through your factory or organization. The people...turn in their old worn out bikes for new ones. The best present you could give your girl friend in Hanoi, I was told...was a new bicycle chain. ...the SAM's began to go high in the heavens and the little kitchen helper...urged me to hurry into the shelter. Then the ack-ack batteries close at hand began to fire... - Salisbury
...the Taliban...set their sights on Dash-e Qaleh. We quickly stopped our work on the girls' school project, because our workers presented tempting targets to Taliban fighter pilots. ...planes, tanks, and missiles daily shelled the town and villages of Dash-e Qaleh. Once other agencies realized that we were determined to maintain a presence in the DQ area, they began asking us to manage their distributions... ...I noticed how few signs...that almost a thousand people had lived there. ...worn circles where animals had been staked out. I suddenly felt helpless. I couldn't tell if I was more upset because the camp was empty or because terrorized people had been forced to live there in the first place. On the way into the camp area each morning...I passed by two Northern Alliance mobile rocket launchers. When launches were conducted by day, the gound throughout the camp shook... A few seconds of ignition...followed by the metallic hiss... - Inside Afghanistan, by J. Weaver, 2002
Tanks Hands down, the greatest legal firework ever made. ...many a Fourth of July was spent coloring small flags from around the world...and sticking them inside a paper firework tank. They'd spit, sputter and pop...until every tank was mangled and burning in the middle of the street. Nobody wins the war. But we sure did have fun. - Mile High Sports, 7/2016
...GoFundMe pages hitting millions of dollars, prayer vigils, flags at half mast, support and compassion to the victims and their families, the Senate sit-in, and so much more. The Good and the Beautiful will always overwhelm... Every time you bring that level of vibration to those around you, it creates a bigger movement - a wave... It might seem as if we are trying to turn the Titanic around before we hit the iceberg. Yes, we are! - natural awakenings, 7/2016
...the Aurora Police Department's first ever international and immigrant teen academy...exclusively for children of metro-area immigrants. ...to learn more about police work, including use of force... "...we know they have to protect themselves and they have reasons why they shoot." "When there's so much going on around the country with Ferguson, Baltimore, Cleveland, ...everybody's got their preconceived notions about what law enforcement is." - Aurora Sentinel, 7/7-13/2016
We all say we want to know our neighbors better, and maybe...bring them together to improve the neighborhood. ...the city is waiving permit fees and providing free barricades for Denver Days 2016. Mayor Michael B. Hancock launched Denver Days four years ago to help forge stronger communities. What better way to encourage...safety and camaraderie then by...spending time with those who share our...streets? "...because of Denver Days... Denver's culture and our heritage...are...celebrated..." says Mayor Hancock. - An extreme community makeover project. - A Somali Tamales cookout... - ...Zumba... - the profile, 7/2016
This summer you'll find no shortage of guides to the best patios, burgers, and events in Denver. They help us define a place -...here are the spots for locals, these are the things visitors must try... But there are...many layers to Denver... These...lists and tours...show one side of a city. An invisible city tour shows alternate ways of interacting with landmarks and busy streets. ...the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception...hosted a mass led by Pope John Paul II in 1993,...former "VOICE" vendor Brian Dibley slept behind the Cathedral in 2015.
These lost souls, this generation of lost people who were so undervalued by society... The era in which we all came of age as homeless men has passed. ...there was...no shelter for homeless kids/teens...and very few meals. The people back then were even colder to us and the police were even harder. When most of my friends were going to proms and driving new cars their folks had paid for, I was...thinking about ending my life so young. ...these people came into my life... If you ask me, these were the brightest stars of their respective times - these tarnished diamonds in the rough who...lived so worldly in terms of their vices, yet so godly in...which they were unattached to the material life...
I feel like happiness doesn't know where to find me
Feels like my life is an obstacle here to try me
My feet are moving as soon as I hear the sirens
The black and whites are attacking
my peaceful life and nirvana
It's been far too long and I'm still trying to get out
Of this sinkhole I'm in called life
And this gravity is much too strong and I've got no doubts
That I'll be here 'til the day that I die - Denver Voice, 7/2016
The times were a deadly deal ... a time when...promiscuity, repressed for millennia, exploded, then literally stopped us dead in our tracks...a best fried lay vomiting, gasping, shitting, dying; when love, death sex, and God bubbled in a psychological pot...when a minority showed its blotched and cadaverous face, forcing...their fellow citizens to examine its national conscience...when serious talk about quarantine camps for the HIV-infected...our nation's president...his tacit approval of a plague that ravaged American citizens. It was a time of great grief and great fear and great rage. Underground secrets of the gay lifestyle stretched across newspapers and screeched over newscasts... The 4-H Club...homosexuals, heroin users, and hemophiliacs. ...the first, mostly disposable populations who contacted the "gay cancer"... Terror, judgement, suspicion, and ignorance reigned supreme. It felt like like end of the world. ...for many...disco provided a baptism...into gayhood with deejay priests... Loosing...a dozen close friends...150 years of friendship - I've learned to assimilate grief;s ebb and flow, to ride its swelling waves. - Out Front, 6/15/2016
This urban running adventure give people a reason to look forward to Mondays, to meet other people, and to explore the many hidden corners of this city on foot. "We always say that they show up for the art, but they stay and continue to show up for the community." As group running with a social bent continues to grow around all kinds of lifestyle pursuits - beer, tourism, dating - art... "It's part of the experience of an urban runner," says renowned art dealer... ...to cater to a 21st century runner's needs and desires: it turns exercise into a shared experience; offers a chance to explore the city. It seems to touch on many of the Millennial generation's stereotypes. He quickly realized the need for help in keeping...a...crowd lawful and under control, and...cultivated a...volunteer army... They're known as PulseKeepers, and each is outfitted with a glowing wrist or ankle bracelet and a handheld boom box to identify themselves and add a bit of ambiance. Several minutes before 10 p.m....huddling in a circle with the PulseKeepers, going over the route and any dangerous sections... The run starts...we pass...homeless people sound asleep on loading docks... A guy in the group running...is feeling it; he's shouting, "...yeah YEAH!" over and over, in a call and response... The PulseKeeper...is feeling it. ...she's effusive with compliments and...fist bumps. ...then a postgame group huddle... "If you need to travel 7 miles to go get lunch, how many communities do you pass...? Who's connecting these? Through art and running, we're connecting each community." "It's my city. ...I just think there are endless possibilities in the land of sunshine and dreams. The land where you can make anything happen." - competitor, 7/2016
July 4th. I am home from some shopping. Sitting in chairs in front of a neighbor's garage are a couple of guys I haven't seen before. I drop off my purchases and head out to the pool. The chairs in front of the garage are stacked up. I take a shortcut behind my barber;s place. There in a tiny alley are the two guys hanging out...as if they are homeless. Late in the following morning, I am on a ride to work. Across one boulevard, I smell someone cooking waffles. Across another, the entire neighborhod smells like honeysuckle. I come to a stop sign where cross traffic has the right of way. A big school bus-yellow riding mower comes down the street. The blade system is huge and the driver rides it standing up. He motions for me to proceed through the intersection ahead of him. In the driveway of a home is a middle aged couple embracing each other. At the other end of the home is a guy with long white hair and a white beard. He is in camouflaged pants and is pulling weeds. Down the street and around the corner, I pass a woman in running gear. She is on her phone discussing marketing. After work, I am coming home on a short detour through an alley. Coming up from the river is a guy in a helmet, carrying home a huge paddleboard and a single paddle. Fifteen minutes later I'm on a connecting trail. I come up behind and find my way around a young woman pushing a stroller. She is on her phone, and I hear her say, "I can't live out of a car with a baby." A short distance away, I come off the trail at the end of a cul de sac. In the circle is a mom and dad with a daughter and son. The dad has one tennis racket and a tennis ball, and the mom is showing the daughter how to bounce a tennis ball with a second racket.
Wednesday. After 1 PM I am on the way to the pool. Coming down a trail through the park, I come up behind a guy with white hair and a white beard. he's in a cap and olive jumpsuit, and he pushed a shopping cart. There does not appear to be anything in the cart. He is looking in a trash can. At the pool is a middle school girl with hair which appears to have been spray painted forest green. There is also a curvy, buxom, and tall girl with her hair in braids. She strikes me as European. A guy in his twenties with a hippie beard and sunglasses is playing with a group of small kids, who are hanging off of him as he moves through the water. I have this fantasy about the guy in the jumpsuit taking his cart and pushing it into the pool, the laughing hysterically as he dances around the deck. The following morning is a beautiful summer day with a breeze. There is not a cloud in the sky, or even smoke from other states' forest fires. I leave the house at 10:30 AM. Down the street, I round a corner where a camper sits parked right up against a home. Outside, a middle aged woman with braided hair paints a small shelf as her child or grandchild plays next to her. She tells the child, "You're workin' way too hard on gettin' into trouble today." Down the street, on the curb is a broken piñata out for the trash. I take the bike on the train, to the supermarket and the bank before a dip in the pool, before I am back on the street headed to work. It's a lazy afternoon on this gorgeous day. The neighborhood has both old and new homes. On the front lawn of one of the new ones is a real estate sign which has come detached from one of its hooks. It hangs from the post, twisting in the wind. For a year I worked in another neighborhood, at a different shopping center. I became a part of that neighborhood, as I am becoming a part of this one.
After work, I am off the trail home and climbing a hill along a crosstown avenue. Up from the street, at the top of the hill in a park, is a bandshell. It's a park through which cars enjoy cruising, perhaps a "make-out point." For some distance across the surrounding neighborhoods, live music in Spanish can be heard out of the bandshell. Along the narrow road up to the top of the hill, cars are parked as far as I can see. Further down this crosstown bike trail, I again run into a neighbor and former co-worker. Up the street from the trail, I pass the home of another neighbor and former co-worker as I do each time I ride my bike home. She lives just down the street from me. This evening, she is on her porch, and I stop while she fills me in on what she has learned about where I work. As we converse, individual motorcycles and trucks rumble up her street next to us, one at a time. Sometimes, we must shout to hear each other. I haven't worked at my company's plant for a year. She quit from there shortly after the change in ownership. She tells me that her sister was let go from there a couple of weeks ago. We all worked there together for a decade, along with a string of others who have quit or were let go. I must speak with her, in Spanish, to find out what goes down there. The next day I am headed crosstown to work. I pass a home on a residential street, the lawn of which has just been cut. A young man clears away the grass...with a leaf blower. That evening, on my ride home, I'm back on the streets of my own neighborhood. I pass a rare Caucasian couple. They are young and on bikes. The male holds a small dog in his arms as he rides.
Sunday, around 6 PM, I am headed home on my bike, after spending the afternoon riding it back and forth across town in 102 degree F heat. Back in my own neighborhood, I watch as a pickup turns a corner. It has a big bullet hole in the passenger side door. A square inch area around the hole is missing paint, and is now a patch of rust. I watch a couple of guys on crotch rockets go buzzing past. Each has sunglasses, but instead of helmets on their heads, each rider has his helmet hanging on the side of his bike. Monday. 4:30 AM. I am back at my old bus stop. In the bus shelter, under a blanket, someone is laid out on the floor asleep. At his feet is a shopping cart full of clothes. Next to that is a walker with a cap on the seat. When the bus comes, I hear him coughing. From across the street I hear a noise like stones on a tin roof. A guy comes out of a Dairy Queen parking lot, riding a ten speed. The back wheel has no tire nor tube. He comes through the crosswalk against a red light.
This was, after all, the entire point - to raise the young man's profile, to meet key personnel...to hone those soon-to-be needed interviewing skills and to secure endorsement dollars... - Mile High Sports, 7/2016
Distribution groundwork begins with a survey. ...family size and their specific needs allows a relief agency to more effectively...organize the distribution. The personal interview equips us to treat them as real people, rather than just a set of needs. ...we often discover valuable skills in the camp. I was...distributing wheat. We might just as well have been handing out bags of gold in the eyes of the people. Afghans spend part of every day preparing it. Bread in Afghanistan represents life, and it is often treated as a holy substance.. - Weaver
The audience...took the tableaux with complete literalness. They lived the little sketches of war - their war. These were their heroes. They saw nothing naive or made-up about these schoolboy vignettes. They themselves were mostly schoolboys. This, in large measure, was a teenage war. Both of the Front representatives were from Saigon. ...they were accustomed to being with Americans... ...it was the atmosphere... In talking to the North Vietnamese representatives, I was struck by...a kind of naivete', a wilfulness in clinging to positions when logic and reason dictated some modification. But these were delicate and subjective shadings... These differences might be put aside for the common goals of Communism. But...Communism did not erase all regional conflicts or divergencies. I had seen this again and again in the Soviet Union. There were no sharper differences than those between the Great Russians, for instance, and the...Ukrainians. In Eastern Europe this kind of difference had become more and more noticeable as time went on. - Salisbury
"Can I get in without covering my hair?" I stepped out and showed her my shorts. "Not everyone will want to talk to you. Especially the older ones." ...quizzical children pointed and whispered to one another; a group of teenagers sat...exchanging glances over their shoulder at me... "...we turned you into tribes and nations. Now the challenge is getting to know one another. Now this man who came with a gun...he wouldn't have eaten suhoor. May we bury the guns like we bury our children." I asked about the Islamic State...and a young woman rolled her eyes, stating that it's always on the Muslim community to clean up after these guys. "We're regular people. They're terrorists." - Outfront, 7/6/2016
Our community is small and often not represented. ...we would contact the local media and news channels about our Asian events, we would not hear a response. Mainstream media were often disinterested in cultural news and events. Half of our readers are not of Asian descent... ...if you do not have an Asian family member, friend, or coworker, it may be hard to try new Asian foods or understand aspects of Asian culture. - asian avenue magazine, 7/2016
...Aurora City Council tabled a...rezoning measure...that sought to...turn a mobile home park into a...light-rail station development. ...no site plan was available. "I'm going to give the developer some assistance tonight...until we get th developer's head out of the ground. And I could use another place where the head might be, but...there are some kids here tonight." - Aurora Sentinel
Wednesday. I'm headed to work some time around noon. I'm off the trail and climbing a hill on a residential crosstown street. A package of drama occurs all within the space of a single block. I hear a noise, like the sound of the rabid badger in the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I turn my head to see a resident taking his trash bin back into his back yard. He is followed by a bulldog, growling and biting the bottom of the bin. Appearing at the exit of an alley in front of me is a garbage truck. It crosses the middle of the street to enter the next alley. On the side of the truck, it reads, "Lies Waste Services." Turning the next corner is a convertible Mustang, which then hits the gas. A young Caucasian guy on the sidewalk asks me, "How are you doing today?" Some seven hours later, I am on my way home. At one intersection, where a car is stopped with its right turn signal on, the driver is texting. A Caucasian couple on bikes signals a right turn in front of me. Each has a helmet and a bar end mirror. I follow them for three blocks. They both blow through three stop signs without stopping.
Thursday. I decide that I am hungry today. After grabbing a prescription at my doctor's clinic, I head over to a pizza place. On one of several flat screen TVs is a flashlight commercial. A husky Caucasian bald guy drives his truck over two flashlights. Only one of them survives... After lunch, I head over to the pool. In the water is a groovy middle-school girl with heart-shaped sunglasses. They have purple lenses. I think I'm in love. But the greatest personality in the pool by far this early afternoon, is a tall and handsome twentysomethng guy with a fine physique, and an enormous personality. He's loud in a way which is contagiously charming. He has perhaps 10 children hanging onto him as he drags them through the water, his booming voice yelling exclamations such as, "Oh no, I thought I got away..." He's hilarious. He should be on TV. He has a following of teenage groupies waiting for him on the pool deck.
Saturday. I'm on my bike, on my way back from working a store as far west of the westside as possible. Just down the street from the foothills, and one gateway to the mountains. The ride back to the train is all downhill, and I go flying past spectacular views of hillsides full of mansions with hills behind. The train takes me downtown, where during summer weekends the pedestrian mall is closed to mall shuttle traffic. This is because the mall is host to local art and artisans. I weave my bike past this scene before I make it to the bike shop. I'll have to leave it until Thursday morning. I take a bus to a mall shuttle which is detoured as it crawls through every light between here and the train, and the train carries me back to my boulevard. On the corner where the station is, a small car and a motorcycle have collided in the middle of southbound traffic, and the path of my bus. At this stop there is no shelter or bench. There is at the northbound stop, but southbound, there is a liquor store in an old gas station. Passengers wait under a roof which used to hang above the old gas pumps. At the intersection are three police cars, an ambulance, and a fire paramedic. Behind the waiting passengers are a handful of guys with their shirts off and over one shoulder, and tattoos. There are also a couple of women, one of whom gets stabbed in the shoulder with a scissors. The deed was done by another guy who actually is wearing a shirt, who is promptly taken away to one of the police cars across the street at the accident. The bus makes its way through and picks us up, including a passenger who gets up and begins arguing with the driver. "I'm not even from here," he tells the driver. "How much money did I put in?"
The following day, I am on my bike, on my way downtown to what I will discover is a nonexistent showing of a movie . Down the street, I stop at a stop sign at a hill. Flying down the hill are three guys who all have long hair, jeans, hats, and black T-shirts. One has a cigarette in his mouth. Upon discovering that the movie showing is two and a half hours after my arrival, I turn around and return home. I decide to go swimming. When I get to the pool, it is closed for "feces."
...Aurora City Council...members approved...a parking permit plan... The program would provide each household...near a (new) light rail station with two free parking permits. ...inoperable cars sitting...for weeks as well as auto shops operating in public right-of-ways...the city learned about when conducting research... (If a resident) does not have parking garage (and) has more than one vehicle but only one parking space...(then the resident would have to move one vehicle) 100 feet every five days. - Aurora Sentinel, 7/14-20/2016
I and our community...are wanting our block party in connection with Denver Days to be great, but it may not due to the drug dealers hazmat and garbage... I asked HOA for help, they passed me off to Denver County who in turn put it back on HOA.
...and little does DPD, [Denver Mayor] HANCOCK know that this portion of Denver will be a hot spot for their overtime enforcement to clean it up! One day... - Nextdoor Westwood, 7/22/2016
But while the Trump name never graced Denver's tallest building, you can still see it on the Trump Plaza Apartments. This...stands (in my neighborhood), an area with 3,290 households, 35 percent of which live in poverty. Residents are 81 percent Hispanic and 40 percent foreign-born... The apartment complex is quite far from a tower - and far from the glitz of downtown development, too. - Westword, 7/21-27/2016
...in Bangladesh... His friend edited the first and only LGBT publication...and is one of two men recently...hacked to death with machetes - for being gay. ...after the... "rainbow rally" in 2009. "...locals flagged me as a gay activist." ...Islamic militants tried to cut off my fingers so he couldn't write about gay rights. ...extremists beat, kidnapped, and raped him. - Out Front, 6/15/2016
Tuesday. The bike is ready. I'm downtown shortly after 11 AM, and walking down the pedestrian mall next to a young, bearded, vagabond dude. He has no shoes, but he does have a cutoff short sleeved hoodie as well as a child's pink cloth violin case, to go along with his woven water bottle holder. I pick up the bike. New brake pads and a new back tire. I head off to skirt the north edge of downtown looking for a train station. I find a train stop and hop on a train. At the next stop, on a bench in the shade, is a guy with salt and pepper hair and a black and white Hawaiian shirt. I watch for the few seconds during which the train is stopped here. he wildly waves his arms as he has a conversation with himself. On the ground next to him is a big trash bag full of clothes. Seven hours later, I am ready to leave work to ride home. Unfortunately, there is a thunderstorm with lightning crackling directly overhead, blowing rain and a headwind. I have to be careful on wet downhill streets. I may as well take shelter in a train ride anyway as the bus driver, for the second day in a row, mistakenly gave me a pass good all day instead of what I paid for, which was a three hour transfer. It's so dark outside in the storm that I put on the lights which I usually use on winter rides home when the sun is already down. The next morning, I am headed down a trail through an open space in my neighborhood. There is evidence that the water along the creek came halfway up to the trail, and over it in spots.
Thursday. I'm at the pool before open swim. For an hour is lap swim only. It's been so hot this week that I'm cool in the pool, except my head which is out of the water. When I see a lane open up I get in. A guy in the next lane appears to be my age. He is looking at a couple of moms on the deck at this end of the pool. The pair have toddlers with them. One of the toddlers is crying because another child got a penny and he didn't. After a couple of laps or more, we are both back at this end of the pool. I hear him say out loud, "This isn't a nursery." (wtf?) Out in the parking lot, a grey-haired guy slowly, slowly pulls in on a motorcycle. On the gas tank is an emblem for Monster Energy Drinks, so I assume that he's not a Hell's Angel.
That evening, it's too hot to sleep, and the following day my ass is dragging. I'm so tired, I think it's still Thursday. Too tired to pedal a bike, I'm on my way to the bus stop. Along the way, I pass another bus stop. At this one, the bus stop sign has a small sticker on it, for a local marijuana shop. At this stop is a young guy who, as I pass, lights up a tiny pipe. Across the street is my own stop. It's next to a church parking lot. Right next to the stop is a woman, in a dress which makes her appear as if she stepped out of some religious cult 30 years ago. She is operating a weed whacker, trimming the curb. Grass is flying in my direction. Just about twelve hours later, I am at another bus stop from my recent past, this one at a light rail station. I came home this way before returning to riding the bike to work again last October. The station has a brand new condominium complex on top of what used to be the parking lot for those going to and coming from the train. And being at their jobs all day in between. On the ground floor of the condo unit, near the bus gates, is an even newer coffee shop/bar/I'm not sure what. One entire bank of windows somehow opens up to the outside, as it has this evening. Weird jams are playing from a sound system as a handful of residents hang out.
From here, the bus whisks me to another stop I used to wait at before using the bike. This stop was a hoppin' homeless place last summer. I wonder what's crackin' here tonight? A young couple sits at a corner of the restaurant behind the bus stop, under an overhang and out of light rain which falls. They look blasted drunk. The lady takes a swig from a 40 oz bottle of beer. Open container? I wonder if anyone should be arrested for any charge which they may not necessarily be in any condition to spell. There is one drunk with grey stubble standing next to a bike parked on the sidewalk, talking to another guy. The bicycle belongs to a lanky white-haired guy who appears to know the young couple, motioning to them to follow him on his bike in the direction of a liquor store. I don't see them get up. Instead, I watch a different guy with stubble pick up different empty liquor containers from under a tree; a crushed tall boy beer can, a plastic tiny airline bottle, a glass container in a paper bag. One by one, he picks them up and takes them to the couple, I presume so that they may see if there is anything left inside them.
Sunday. I am doing the weekly walk from my favorite breakfast place, over to the supermarket. Coming up a street at the speed of a car is what appears to be a huge ATV. Riding on it is a young blonde is a bright green halter and shorts. It's so big it appears at first that she is standing on it. By the time I get to the supermarket, she pulls through the lot to fill up at the gas station. A couple of hours later, I'm on a bus to a movie. In one seat is one drunk, who moves to another seat with another drunk when a third passenger gets up to get out. The two drunks begin reminiscing about past ice cream parlors and doughnut shops, the previous locations of which they spot through the windows as the bus rolls along. When they turn in the direction of the window next to my seat, I use the opportunity to snap a photo of them. The two stand up to get out where we stop at a red light. The bus stop is on the other side of the intersection, but one of them calls to the driver to open the "back door!" The driver obliges and the pair are on their merry way. My own stop is at the train station up the street. I get out and see a white-haired guy with his trousers 'slung low,' with his boxer shorts visible. He's in a long-sleeved shirt, on the back of which it says, "Grand Canyon River Guide."
Monday. 4:40 AM. It's my turn to work all day today this week. I'm back at my bus stop of old. In the bus shelter is the usual guy with the shopping cart and walker, asleep on the ground. Across the street is the infamous ex-medical marijuana dispensary, raided for laundering money for Columbian gangsters. Just another American dream doomed to end with a visit from authorities in black masks and acronym initials on their backs. Morning in America. This morning, it's surrounded by a construction fence, and scaffolding and stacked cinder blocks surround one end of the building. A small forklift sits parked in the corner of the lot. From down the avenue and through the intersection comes a tow truck. Up in the bed is an SUV which appears to have been in a crash. The right headlamp is still on. I watch this Cyclops as it makes its way through the dark predawn. At another train station down the line, I spot a falling star burning orange toward the mountains.
By 10,000 BC...of the hominids..."homo sapiens" alone held the field. ...recognizably human in ways that older types were not: they bury their dead with care and have some use for paint... They live in larger groups, and begin...regulating community life... ...one can say that progress remains a fruitful interaction of environment and invention of...relations with nature and of...relations with each other. ...populations...developed their farming and metal-using technology, worked out their characteristic religions, embarked on new social and political organization ranging from powerful states...to...tribal democracy... ...draw its governing power and revenue from the control of water supply, from taxation of landowners and peasants and other forms of tribute, including military service. - Davidson
Each tribal chief needs to acquire recurring resources... ...critical if he wishes to expand his domain beyond his kinship network. If he fails...he risks losing to tribal rivals and will be discarded. - The Wars of Afghanistan, by P. Tomsen, 2011
...took over and reshaped the administrative services...and developed a large corps of clerks and tax-gatherers, commanders and governors, artists and technicians... ...'towns of masonry' of a...people who understand iron-working, wheat-growing, and cotton production, who raised temples to their gods... Its rulers vanish from the scene. Was the decline caused by dynastic dischord, by an 'over-militarization' of the state? ...the decline affected urban centers while scarcely touching the villages... ...this ancient and majestic polity... ...consisted in a state system and politico-adminisative hierarchy, capped by a divinely-sanctioned ruler with his immediate family and flanked by holders of titles...largely parasitical upon the internal economy. ...export of raw materials and primary products, including captives for foreign enslavement... ...'under-development': to a "process" that is, of widening economic stagnation and...regression in...its external markets and suppliers, and...to their political and military power. - Davidson
Tuesday. After work. I'm on my bike, headed for home through the neighborhood across the street from work. I watch a family of 4 or 5, all on bikes, as they all blow through a stop sign. Across a boulevard into another neighborhood, a trio of grade school kids are all on bikes. They are enacting their own invented drama. Around the corner, someone else blows through a stop sign. A young guy in a T-shirt with a crest on the breast. Across another boulevard. On a grade school playground are a handful of kids, swinging on a swing set, and a couple of adult women. A teenager and two younger girls. Next to the swing set is a child in a wheelchair. He appears to have a neuromuscular disorder. The youngest girl falls off the swing and the kid in the wheelchair laughs. The teen comforts the child. I've stumbled, as I do on these rides, upon a moment in a local neighborhood drama. When I get to the river, from across the bridge comes a guy on a bike who may be homeless, followed by a family of three on bikes. The child is in a shirt which reads "Texas girl." Families must have discovered just this evening that there is a bike trail. They are all over the river trail. When I get on a trail back in my neighborhood, there is a Mexican family on bikes. I turn off the trail and up a residential street. I am passed by an SUV at one cross street. It pulls into a driveway directly, and then up onto the front lawn where it parks.
Wednesday. I am walking behind a shopping center down the street from where I live. This is where the nearest mailbox is for packages, which I need to mail something which won't fit in my own letterbox. Here in the back parking lot, sitting on the edge of a dumpster, is a guy with long grey hair, a rock concert T-shirt, and a chain with keys. One leg is in the dumpster, and one is outside as he tosses garbage onto the parking lot; a bagel, an aluminium can. Again the wall is another grey haired guy. Next to him is a shopping cart full of stuff, and on the ground is a sleeping bag and a big red suitcase. When I leave for work at 11 AM, I am met by a couple of women in the parking lot. They don't appear any older than myself. One of them tells me that she used to ride her bike all the time, until she "lost strength in my legs." When I step out of work to go home, I spot a guy on a ten-speed in full spandex gear. He blows through the stop sign. On my trek home, I am passed by two moms in colorful blouses leisurely riding through the neighborhood. On the trail, oncoming Caucasians on ten-speeds have serious expressions. I am passed from behind by a guy in matching shirt and shorts. He has neon yellow socks and neon orange shoes. As I approach my street, a police helicopter makes tight circles overhead.
Thursday. The trailhead for the first trail to work is in my neighborhood. Shortly before noon, I watch as a guy comes down from the mailbox of the home right next to it. He has a red beard, British cap, orange construction vest, and shorts. As he opens his letter, he stands on the sidewalk, right in the middle of the trailhead. Out on the river trail is the first dog I've ever seen walking by itself. I turn off the trail a short ways to a park. In the otherwise empty parking lot, on a lazy summer day around noon, is a classic car from the 1940s, parked in the shade. It's black with green flames, parked under the shade of a tree. The driver is asleep...or dead. At the end of the park is a small skateboard park. This skate park has been full of skaters since I have been riding this way, beginning in May. Until today, when it's void of anyone but a guy riding through it on a bike, with two collapsible saddlebags on back. One of the saddlebags has inside what appears to be some kind of seat cushion, and the rider wears a fire department T-shirt. Out of the lot and down the street, a young guy whizzes through a stop sign on a ten speed. Along the way, a home has a "play house" for sale on its front lawn. It;s just as tall as the real house, and otherwise looks like an addition to the home in a different color. From behind a fence, a dog barks at me. I hear its owner say to it, "Time out, time out." I guess this is what you say to a dog in 2016. At the pool is a young girl in the bottom half of a mermaid costume. She swims right under me in the deep end. From there, on the way to work, I suddenly hear a couple of other dogs behind another fence begin growling and fighting. This owner resorts to, "Hey, hey!"
Friday. Yeah, happy Friday... I'm up with the dawn patrol. At a quarter to five AM, I am sitting at a train station a bit further that the one I usually frequent. I am at another, where I would sometimes come to even earlier than this. That was back when I would get a ride sometime after 3 AM, which would bring me part of the way, from where I would walk here. Back when I would cover a shift in production beginning at 5 AM,, at the store where I currently work. Where I now stroll in at 3 PM, and only once every other Monday at 7 AM. Where, currently, there is no longer any production, nor is there the long time front counter manager who passed away, nor her crew, nor the production crew, all of whom I knew. She passed in the summer a couple of years ago. The company was sold that autumn. And almost all of the employees from a short time past have left, and the rest discarded. It's a new age for the company for which I work, and it's been some time since I have been this direction. Two years? Three? I think about the past decade during which I came this way in the dark every so often. In four days, I am going to be 51. I wonder how long I will be allowed to continue doing what I do for a living? This morning, I am headed to a different store, in a part of the metro area known for its commerce and gracious living and its upscale restaurants. I will be at work long before any of the eateries are open for business. I wait at this particular train station, which is underground, and next to an interstate. Traffic roars past and echoes off the concrete. A transit system security officer and I hop on the train. When he comes around to my car, I show him my proof of fare. There is a young guy asleep in a seat next to us. The officer has difficulty waking him up. The only ticket that this guy has expired three hours ago. The officer asks him where he's headed, and informs him that he is on the wrong train. At my stop, the trash cans on the platform have their lids opened or removed, but the trash bags have not been replaced. 'Tis a sign that the homeless have paid a visit here at opulent Arapahoe Station at Village Center Square light rail station. An opulent sandwich sign alerts riders that, during the time I will be back here this afternoon, the electrical power will be disconnected to any ticket machines. When I return, I will be unable to validate my fare ticket, rendering it effectively useless. I purchase a pass, good for the rest of the day. When I return here after work, the power is on and the ticket kiosks are working just fine. I hop on the train, get out and pedal my way back to my own street. On the way to work, my street ends at a park, and on the way home begins there. At a concrete picnic-style table are a gaggle of drunks, including one woman. She replies to something one of the m has said, and all of them begin laughing. I can hear them down the park trail as I pass many families.
This day began at 4 AM. Some sixteen hours later, I come riding into the parking lot of my townhome complex. Sitting on the ground in front of one of my neighbor's carport is a bald middle aged guy in pajama bottoms. I don't recognize him, and if he is a resident, I have no idea wtf he is doing there on the ground. He is on his phone, and he has next to him on the ground, a can inside of a brown paper bag. A woman comes out of the back gate to bring him a plate of food. It's a new weird... The following morning, I awoke to find no texts or voicemails. I was convinced for the first couple of hours that I was going to have a rare Saturday off. Then the boss called. At 3 PM, I am out of work. On the ride home, I cruise past a lake. It's full of pelicans. On the other side of the avenue is a field, over which a couple of hawks are turning lazy circles. At the train station, Caucasians with weirdo hats and tattoos. Crows fly among massive trees, upon the estates of the massive condominiums. From the train, I ride back into my side of town. I am coming up a hill as I pass a tow truck parallel parking, positioning itself to take away the vehicle against which it is backing up. Across the street is a neighbor watching and enjoying this scene. Laughing, he says, "Alright."
Sunday. It's two days before my birthday. I am at the bus stop just outside where I live, waiting for the bus to the grocery store. On the bench, next to the ten speed and the shopping cart, is a guy in a Polo shirt, shorts, and loafers. When the bus shows up, he begins talking to himself. When he turns around, it almost appears as if he has a shiner under his left eye. We both get out at the same stop. I watch as he heads over to a bar called the Cheerio Lounge. At 8 AM. With the groceries home, I take my bike to go see a movie downtown. I stop for lunch at a new place just across the street. I watch out the window as twentysomething hipsters walk their dogs up and down, and up and down the avenue. As individual as they may consider themselves, they actually put a cap on the nostalgic air of these residential evenings and the urban signs and wonders. This has been one long month, and so far it's an interesting summer.
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